criminalization of the homeless

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In Columbia SC it is now essentially a criminal offense to be homeless, and citizens have been asked to call the police if they observe homeless people in the downtown area. Benches and places to rest have been removed to discourage homeless people from stopping to rest. This is insanity.

Web Page Name
http://www.bbncommunity.com/now-illegal-homeless/ One of these links should work. I am not proficient at this insertion of link business.

Laws against "loitering" and "vagrancy" have frequently been found constitutionally questionable, see for example:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolender_v._Lawson

However, as the country moves farther and farther away from the Constitution I'm afraid we'll see more laws of this kind, and they may stand.

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” Charles Darwin

so-called "good prosperity gospel" Christians ignore this at their karmic peril.

what strange bedfellows those two must have been.

I find myself wishing I believed in reincarnation, so I could take solace in knowing how these bastards in Columbia S.C. would take their turn on the Karmic wheel being reborn as the poor and homeless, and having no where to sleep other than a "concentration camp" that was of their own making in their previous lives.

I DO believe in reincarnation and I am convinced these people were feudal lords back in the days of olde, so their time in the penalty box is in the future and cannot be avoided unless they wanna give up their eternal souls.

Do these "criminals" end up in prison for sleeping on a park bench?, in which case wouldn't it be easier to just build some dormitories for them rather than more prisons?

Sigh. Yet another city picking on the most vulnerable of citizens. I can see their point though; still, more can be done to help the homeless rather than just shuffling them off to some colony like lepers.

I live in the UK where vagrancy has already been a criminal offence for years. There was even one particularly disgraceful incident last year when police shunted a group of homeless people outside of the disused swimming baths they'd been sheltering in and confiscated food and bedding that had been donated to them by members of the public.

But would I report the sighting of a homeless person to the police? Definitely not - and fortunately I suspect that also applies to most people who live here, except for the occasional busybody with nothing better to do than cause trouble for anyone less fortunate than them.

Is this for real


'Homeless people are set to be shipped off to a camp on the outskirts of town – but the kicker is that the shelter only has 250 beds, which are available on a first come, first serve basis.

Once you’re in the camp, there’s no way of leaving, and there’s no room for the other thousand homeless residents left in the city.'

WTF! how is it legal to imprison people for being homeless?.....and so the homeless that aren't lucky enough to make it into that prison camp will have the opportunity to be put in actual prison. Yay facism